I Won’t Give In To Fear

Say it with me now, I won’t give in to fear. 

Doesn’t that feel good?

Gets the blood moving. 

Gets the spirits up. 

HALLELUJAH!

The world is a scary place and it is full of rabble-rousers who want nothing more than to weaponize ignorance and fear for their own gain. They want to stoke fear until it’s hot enough, and it’s wild enough to get what they want out of it. These people believe they can direct this ire, this rage, for their own purposes but what they don’t realize is that fire is unpredictable and dangerous and will burn anything in its way. 

We saw this on January 6th, when people had been told over and over again that THEY had been cheated and THEY had been lied to and that THEIR votes had been ignored and they were roused into a firestorm that shook the nation. This was about the few feeling ignored and cast aside by the many. 

This was the tantrum of a vocal and activated minority of ball cap patriots desperate to be heroes without understanding what heroism really is. 

And directing it all was an ousted President and his cronies, who ran in fear from the raging mob until they were safe and could declare that these people were not nearly as bad as it seemed. 

We hear from celebrities how THIS group is coming for us or that THIS group is secretly running the world from the shadows when all they have are borrowed lies and anecdotal internet claims. There is no reason to do this other than for their own gain. Because THEY are being held down or held back by SOMEONE and it clearly can’t be themselves because they are brilliant superstars that see more than we mere working class mortals can see. 

War. 

Inflation. 

Immigration. 

Abortion. 

The Culture Wars.

The Gay Agenda.

Trans Children. 

Wokeness. 

You can add a hundred more buzzwords to the list and it all still adds up to one fact and it’s the need to stoke fear where none exists. 

Nothing in this world is new. 

It’s us that changes, not the world. 

It’s the way we see the world and our willingness to accept the world as it is. 

Humans are humans. 

We are who we are. 

What’s happening is that some people are being brave enough and bold enough to live their truths and to risk their safety and in some cases lives. 

What’s happening is that people are refusing to live in fear because a minority of us are afraid of someone else’s truth. 

BUT WHAT OF THE CHILDREN!

They’ll scream, the fearmongers. 

Insisting that abortion is killing MILLIONS of children, while they ignore the children already here living in poverty. Ignoring the mother’s lives that may be saved by a necessary termination of a pregnancy. The unborn are just another arrow in a quiver that’s full of barbed ideas they don’t fully grasp. Oh, they’ll talk, and talk, and talk about these things, about abortion, but never will listen to the fact that NO ONE likes it, but that it’s a legal right women deserve and a necessity. They want to make it a sin issue, a sort of a luxury issue, as if women get pregnant and terminate casually, without a care in the world

They don’t want the truth, the real truth, they just want their painted truth that will stoke people’s passions. 

But what about all of the trans kids FLOODING the sports teams and bathrooms. As if this is some new epidemic, their fear of children greater than their fear of a virus that would kill them AND their children. Fooled into thinking their kids have some strange and miraculous chance at sports greatness if only that other kid hadn’t ruined everything. 

Many of these same people think it’s totally appropriate to wander around with a gun on their hip because they has rights and such. 

But that’s the thing about rights, isn’t it?

We’re not all going to like all of them but still have to abide by them until they change. 

There is so much in this world to be afraid of why do we want to let people who we’ll never meet and who see us as nothing more than a customer or a tool for them to use stoke our fears so they are out of control. 

Left to our own devices, most of us can get along well enough. 

We may not agree with one another all the time but we can often see past it and move on. 

It’s when someone steps in and declares that THAT person is someone to hate, or someone to fear that we start to get riled up. 

Are they?

Should we?

How dare they?

We pretend to be this nation to be admired and feared but don’t put the work in to earn the respect we demand.
We don’t tend to our own chickens. 

We’d rather look over into the neighbor’s yard to see how their garden grows. 

In this election time fear is a currency to be transacted. 

It’s a rod to push us forward. 

It’s a staff to lead us to a destination. 

The pedal is down on the fear mongering and while it’s laughable how crazed the allegations are, some people will believe it. 

Some people have believed it. 

They are willing to beat and burn anything and anyone who they don’t agree with, placing their ire above the value of other people’s lives and doing everything that flies in the face of the faith they pretend to ascribe to.

They have enough of their own fear that they only see a world around them that is different and dangerous and that somehow, someway, they are being marginalized along with their faith and beliefs. 

It doesn’t mean it’s true, but if someone in power or with money tells you it is, you may believe it and we’re in an era of belief without fact. 

But I refuse to be afraid. 

I refuse to let fear mongers rule me. 

I refuse to let their poisoned carrot lead me over the edge of the precipice. 

I am not going to let people who care only about power, about money, and about themselves drive me into hate. 

I won’t let people who are happy to see the world end so long as it means they are right in the end win without a fight. 

I won’t let the monsters of the world keep me scared to live. 

I see that there are good people around me. 

That there are damaged but kind people around me. 

That this is a beautiful if dangerous world. 

I see that there is hope despite the best efforts of the tyrants and war lords and fear mongers. 

I won’t give in to fear. 

I hope you won’t either. 

…c…